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There was more to Dennis Stock than his celebrated portraits of the stars

February 3 2004, 12:00am, The Times

DENNIS STOCK was one of the early American photojournalists whose career was built on the mass-market magazines of the 1950s.

Fresh out of the US Navy after the Second World War and still only 17 years old, he did a photography course with Berenice Abbott, became an assistant to Eugene Smith, the king of Life photo-essayists, and followed up with a stint working for Gjon Mili, the gregarious Albanian, whose lively studio, full of dancers, musicians, actors and models, became Stock’s university.

When in 1951 Life announced a photo-essay competition, Stock took his Rolleiflex to the Manhattan piers to photograph German and Polish refugees from Communism arriving at the docks. He won first prize and within days was invited by Robert Capa to become an…